I will try to explore some pros and cons of the different fiber types. The first and foremost question to ask is whether you are talking about fiber on the animal or off the animal. I will first start with fiber on the animal, breaking the fiber down into several categories. Please note, these observations are from a person who has minimal time for grooming, arrives at llama shows with 8-10 ungroomed llamas and no help, and is not a spinner.

On the animal

Light wool with abundant, course guard hair (Also know as classics) This type of fiber is definitely best if you want to pack with animals. The abundant guard hair appears to correlate with bare head and bare legs. Many breeders say you can easily shear a llama so that all llamas can pack, but your true packers want the bare head and legs for heat control. The fiber from these animals is often "shed" and can be blown out quite easily, leaving a very sparse, cool coat with an abundance of coarse long guard hairs that shed debris and rain. These type llamas are also often preferred by people who do a lot of public relations, therapy and parades as the llamas are easier to keep clean. The other group of people who like the true light wools are the ones who like to look out in their pastures and see "clean" animals and don't want to go to all the trouble of constant grooming. These animals will always have a lot of "crimp" in their undercoat fiber. Some spinners actually like to use the fiber with the guard hairs left in as it adds luster to the finished product.

Light wool without abundant, course guard hair - I have found few people who really like this type fiber on the animal, as they do not have the advantages indicated above. They have a tendency to pick up a lot of debris, due to the nature of the fiber and lack of guard hairs

Medium wool - When evaluating medium wool animals, one needs to look at the fineness of the fiber, crimp, and guard hairs. My absolute favorite fiber is medium wool, "silky" fiber. This is a fiber with very little crimp and scale and is a very fine fiber with a low micron count. On the animal, I have found that a real silky fleece cleans up easier than any other and stays clean in the pasture. If the medium wool animal has dense fiber with a lot of crimp and scale it will definitely be harder to clean up and keep clean. I have one female like this and she takes significantly longer to groom than any of my others. I quit showing her dad at an early age because he was so much work to clean up.

Heavy wool - Most heavy wool animals have minimal guard hairs coupled with lots of dense, long wool which may vary in degrees of scale and crimp. This makes for an animal that looks gorgeous when groomed, but that grooming may take an enormous amount of time and energy. There are many frustrated new llama owners who bought these type animals at a sale or show, only to have to face the harsh reality of the effort it takes to keep them looking good. The heavy wool silkies have the same advantages as the medium wool silkies but will produce more fiber than the medium wools. These animals are gorgeous when cleaned up.

Suri wool - According to the definition of suri, suri means straight (i.e. no crimp). There are five types of suri fiber (according to Susan Tellez) straight, twisted, flat, fan, and curled. One would think that this type fiber would stay clean, but in viewing suri animals it does not (maybe because debris gets trapped within the locks), and in many animals has a tendency to "dreadlock" and mat. Suri breeders will tell you they do not routinely bathe or heavy groom their animals in order to maintain the lock structure. Therefore, the art of "picking" the fiber is critical. I for one do not have time to pick fiber. However, few will argue that a well groomed suri fleece on a real llama is a sight to behold and is quite breathtaking. The suri fleece tends to "hang" on a llama (as it lacks crimp and therefore loft), making these animals quite exquisite. It does appear, though, that the lamas who have acquired their suri gene from an alpaca will have a tendency for their fiber to become coarse with age.

Off the llama

This is what we should be looking at if we are to market the animals as "fiber animals". The comments below are from my fellow llama enthusiasts who have the talent and time to hand spin, which I have neither of, along with some publications. But, I do have virtually all of my fiber processed and made into items for sale at a local store.

Light wool - The only complaint I have ever heard about light wool off the animal is removing the guard hair. This is very easily avoided if one obtains the fiber through grooming rather than shearing. The crimp in the fiber and relative cleanliness due to the guard hair protection makes the light wool a spinners dream. However, many will say they prefer the alpaca huacaya since it is finer and generally has far fewer guard hairs to remove. A light wool animal with the fewer, finer guard hairs presents a problem as they do not readily shed and removing the guard hairs is a pain (not something I would like to spend my evenings doing). If the animal has long, abundant guard hair, it is not that difficult to remove. However, some spinners prefer to leave the guard hair in to add character and luster to the fiber.

Medium wool - Some spinners feel that the silkiness of the silky medium wool llama makes it a little more difficult to spin due to its slippery nature. The silkies should have SOME crimp to be able to be spun easily. However, this wool provides a very soft fine garment as long as the micron count stays low. I believe the lack of scale, lower general micron count and minimal crimp makes it more wearable than most other fibers. However, one big disadvantage of this fiber is that it is not dense and the shearing yields significantly less fiber than a denser, more crimped, non-silky fiber. Medium wool animals that are not silkies have nice crimp so spinning ease is not an issue. The biggest complaint is that the guard hairs are difficult to remove, and the animals are difficult to clean up prior to shearing. However, like the light wool animals some of these have very fine guard hairs that do not need to be removed.

Heavy wool - Although heavy wool "silkies" exist, most heavy wool animals tend to have more the traditional dense, crimped fiber with finer guard hairs. Although nice to spin, it is difficult to remove debris from the animals prior to shearing, so the fleeces are not generally real clean (unless of course you want to spend several days bathing and cleaning). Once processed, a clean heavy wool fleece is said to spin quite nicely. The heavy wool silkies spin and process similar to the medium wool silkies.

Suri - Most hand spinners I know do not like suri to spin. However, I have spoken to some who love suri fiber. According to Glynn Smith (in an article by Mike Safley), commercial processors in South America use suri exclusively to weave fabric for outerwear. However, for Suri to be used by the processors, the micron count must be less than 30. The coarse suri fiber (over 30 micron) in South America is discarded into the lowest quality fleeces made for rugs. Suri is rarely used for woolen processing but rather in the worsted spinning process, due to the fact that it is heavy and does not hold its shape in the woolen applications. Much of the suri I have felt in the US has a coarse feel indicating a high micron count. So, it appears the bottom line is that although fine suri is the most valuable fiber produced by alpacas, it is used primarily in weaving as it does not have the memory of a crimped fiber. In addition, the fiber must have a low micron count (the result of additive gene effects which is a whole different story). I have yet to hear many breeders talk about micron count in suris - it would be interesting to sample a number of the suri llamas to determine what the average micron count actually is. One of the problems I see occurring in North America is that breeders are breeding solely for the suri look and disregarding the fineness and density of the fleece. Suri is best used when producing garments where "drape" is required and Elasticity is not necessary.

One of my friends who spins a lot, Sue Ellen Duree states, "After working with a lot of different kinds of fleeces, I find that I prefer thick cotton candy fleece where the guard hairs are long and coarse, and the "underwear" is soft and fine, with lots of crimp. I love working with Blue's (medium wool with crimp) fleece. It takes me a day to pick out the guard hairs, but I think the resulting fiber is worth it. He's easy to clean, and he's got great "underwear". Heavy long, silky fiber, like Seval's, just doesn't have enough crimp for the yarn to be really elastic and springy with memory, and it's hard or almost impossible to pick out the guard hairs."

According to the publication by Mike Safley "The Role of Crimp in the Textile Process" the following conclusions were drawn:

• Higher crimped wools may be more commercially valuable when used in the woolen process.
• Low crimp, low micron count wools generally demonstrate better handle characteristics.
• High crimped wools were better suited for use in heavier winter garments.
• Low crimped wools were better suited for light weight garments.
• Low crimped wools were generally easier and more efficient to process than high crimped wools

So the bottom line on fiber is:

• The lower the micron count, the better the fiber for garments - once a micron count gets over 22, the garment will feel itchy and prickly. Over 30 is unusable for garments.
  
  
• The more crimp, density, and scale a fiber has, the easier it is to spin, but the harder it is to keep clean on the animal, and to clean up for spinning.
  
  
• A fiber MUST have some amount of crimp to be able to hold together and be spun.
  
  
• The ideal fiber (in my opinion) is the medium wool silky that has a very small amount of crimp, minimal if any scale, and is of a fine texture. This type fiber cleans up easily on the animal, stays relatively clean in the pasture, is not difficult to spin and work with, and creates a garment that is soft and in many cases has a high luster.
  
  
• Regardless of what type fiber you use, all spinners say to clean, clean, clean while it is on the animal - the debris is much easier to remove.
  
  
• If you are buying a few animals to harvest and spin their wool yourself, then you should consider purchasing animals who will maintain a fine micron count for the longest possible period.

If you want more information, a great resource is www.alpacas.com, or the ILR web page where Nancy Fox has written a great article on fiber. To truly look at llama fiber qualities, we must start with all the research that has been done on alpacas since llamas have traditionally not been bred for their fiber. However, one interesting thing that was brought up during my discussions with spinners was that llamas appear to maintain a fine micron count longer in life than an alpaca. Whether or not these are isolated cases or an indication of the breed, I don't know but it would be worth looking into.

About Debi Garvin:

Debi Garvin, has a Masters degree in Animal Science with emphasis on Animal Breeding from New Mexico State University. She has been breeding and raising various animal species (including horses, dogs, rabbits, sheep, pigs, goats and llamas) since high school, and currently raises llamas, Boer goats and Pembroke Welsh Corgis. She owns and bred the 1999 ALSA National Grand Champion, Cabernet's Pinot Blanc, and considers herself a small breeder, with only 10-15 cria born yearly. Professionally, Debi is a Quality Assurance consultant for the regulatory research community, offering consulting, auditing, and training services to pharmaceutical, animal health and pesticide research manufacturers and laboratories. She was the President of the Society of Quality Assurance a multinational non-profit organization.

Debi and Rich Garvin
Cabernet Creek Farms
Email Debi: debi@pacrimqa.com

Copyright © 2005 by Debi Garvin